How to get more 5-star reviews

… and turn your customers into brand evangelists!

Reviews matter, here’s why – when customers compare your business’s product or service, your online reviews can be the deciding factor of whether they choose you or a competitor. In fact, 92% of potential buyers will use a local business if it has at least a 4-star rating. The truth is the more positive reviews your businesses has, the better your chances of converting more customers are.

Google is the most widely used online search engine, and Google My Business is becoming more important for companies that reply attracting customers that are local to their location. Google My Business is a powerful tool that provides a free business listing that includes information about business hours, phone number, directions, and (of course) customer reviews.

So how do you get your customers to leave really good reviews? Make it easy!

I’ll show you how to set up a keyword so you can relax and let Zipwhip do the work for you. We’re going to send a text to our customers containing a link to our Google My Business page and ask them nicely to review our business. Of course, you could send these texts out one-by-one, on a case by case basis, or to a group of up to 50 contacts. But if you’re in it for the long haul, there’s a better approach.

Creating your Review Link

If you’re going to ask your customers to take a few minutes out of their busy day to write a review, you should make the process as easy as possible. The best way to do this is by linking them to where they should leave their review. Here’s how to do that.

Search your company name in Google. If you already have a Google My Business listing, you’ll see your profile on the right.

Click the “Write a review” button.

When the Google review box opens, copy the URL in the address bar.

The long URL you copied will look something like this: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=zipwhip&lrd=0x5490154525d4a053:0x89f255a1949d5ec6,3

4. By default, this link will open the review box with an empty star rating. BUT, by simply adding a five after the final comma, the same link will open with all five stars select by default. Your new URL should look similar to this now: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=zipwhip&lrd=0x5490154525d4a053:0x89f255a1949d5ec6,3,5

5. Boom! Your link is optimized for the best rating possible, but let’s clean it up first. Take that ugly long link to Google’s free url shortener to generate a smaller link such as https://goo.gl/0OSrNE.

How to Set up a Keyword

Now that you’ve created your review link, it’s time to use texting to push that link out to customers. The best way is to create a Zipwhip Keyword.

1. Log in to zipwhip.com and click the Keywords button.

3. Type a Keyword, such as “Review”.

4. In the Reply Message box, type your message. Feel free to use this as a template:

“We’d like to hear what you think of (your business name). Please click the link to leave us a review:

(your link here)

Thank you!”

Now, you can start telling your customers to “Text ‘Review'” to (your existing business number) to leave us a Google review.” Post this message on Facebook or wherever you please.

When the customer clicks the link it will redirect them to leave a review. By default, the rating is 5 stars so customers only have to tap “Post” or type a one sentence review if they’d like. Here’s how it looks when you click the link:

So now that you’ve set it up you can sit back and let the reviews roll in! The same technique can be applied to Yelp, Facebook, and App reviews, too. By asking directly for your customers’ feedback, you show them you’re committed to their satisfaction, and hopefully they’ll leave you 5 stars in return.

Want to see it in action? Text “Review” to (855) 947-9447 to leave a review for Zipwhip.

Zipwhip is the productivity tool that lets businesses and customers text each other. Zipwhip text-enables your existing (landline, VoIP, or toll free) business number. With direct connections to tier 1 carriers, Zipwhip is the trusted, scalable solution to business texting.